Review: Woods of Silver and Light by Victoria McCombs
Happy Release Day Victoria McCombs!!!!
Thank you and Parliament House Press for the eARC! This is such a great book and I highly recommend it to all you fantasy lovers out there! This book is more like Ella Enchanted or Goose Girl, not like more mature YA reads such as The Cruel Prince or Caraval. This is a companion novel to Victoria’s book The Storyteller’s Daughter so I believe you can read it as a standalone or read it in order. Check out the synopsis and my review below!
Synopsis:
Ronin’s son is dead, and Maid Marion is gone. But a sorceress banished to the Woods can bring his son back if he and his Silver Raiders are willing to do something for her first. She finds there's nothing Ronin Hood won't do for his son…
Anika finds herself drawn to the mystery of the Woods and the thieves who live within, but the cost of associating with the Silver Raiders becomes higher than she's willing to pay. The darkness of the Woods seeps into the Raider's hearts, blurring the lines between hero and villain. Anika's fight for freedom turns into a fight to survive the dangers of the trees whose magic should have never been awoken.
This isn't the tale of Robin Hood you remember.
This is a companion novel to The Storyteller's Daughter.
Review:
Oh boy this book was a rollercoaster of emotions. First I just want to say that I LOVED this book and really enjoyed it more than The Storyteller’s Daughter because I think the characters and relationships were better developed, plus I just loved Anika’s fiery personality more. I literally binge-read this in a day it was that good.
There was one event that happened in the beginning of the book that just made me go “what the heck are these characters thinking” but then at the end of book their actions made so much sense. One thing that was a little confusing at the beginning was when Anika was sorting out her feelings for Christopher. She says that he’s hardly a friend, but he’s doing his best to help her with some stuff like a friend would. Then she starts feeling jealous when she sees him with another girl, but when she finds out more info about the girl she’s like “I don’t care at all.” Like gurrrrl make up your mind holy moly. She also has this internal debate about wanting to be free in the Woods but also take care of her manor and keep it from falling into possibly evil hands. Also in the beginning of the book she gets a note from someone and says it’s so peculiar and wonders why he sends a note…but like she literally went to go see this person and ran into him a couple times so it makes sense that she’d spark his interest and he’d want to talk to her. The final thing I found a bit problematic was this idea that was repeated throughout the book. This is one of the quotes of the idea: “But you will bankrupt the nobles and teach the villagers they don’t need to rely on hard work.” I thought this idea was a little bit problematic because Anika believes that if the villagers keep accepting hand-outs of stolen goods from the Silver Raiders then they won’t rely on hard work anymore. Not everyone is stuck in poverty because they don’t work hard and just because you accept help does not mean you’ll become lazy and keep expecting that help instead of finding a way to be self sufficient.
Now onto the good stuff. Characters. I loved the characters. Elenora is such a sweetheart and I hope she lives all happily ever after. Christopher is totally bae and I love love love how supportive he is of Anika and does not want to change a single thing about her. I also loved the moral greyness of the characters. I would read and be like “Yasss I’m rooting for you” but then question it because they do sketchy things but they do it with good intentions and just…your brain might hurt a bit. I was literally constantly questioning the morality of characters while reading this book and I think this aspect just made them so much more interesting and they all had way more depth and complexity. I wish we got a tad bit more information on Cera’s backstory related to a certain person though.
Oh my goodness though. That ending. The action and drama and the reveals. I can’t believe all that stuff happened. Omg and my heart broke a little at one thing that happened in the end. The cliffhanger ending ahhhhh. I need to read more! I hope we get more of Anika in Book 3 of the series because she was my fav! Overall this is a super great book and a really thought-provoking retelling of Robin Hood. Highly recommend.
4.5/5🌟
If you read this let me know what you think in the comments below!
Happy reading bookworms 😊
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